All right, I am seeing a lot of questions about this one, so I will stick my neck out and offer why I answered (B) in a little under a minute. As is often the case on harder questions, the reason does have to do with meaning, but here, there was a dash of Hollywood-related jargon that guided my reasoning as well. Let us take a closer look.
bschool83 wrote:
The documentary film An Inconvenient Truth has the distinction of being Hollywood’s first carbon-neutral film: the filmmakers hired energy consultants to determine the movie’s “carbon footprint” from production-related travel, clerical and office expenses, and where the cast and crew stayed on location and then offset the emissions they produced with renewable energy credits.
Notice first how there are three parts to the list
within the prepositional phrase that begins with
from: a)
production-related travel; b)
clerical and office expenses; c)
where the cast and crew stayed on location. The first two parts are parallel, with an adjective or adjectives modifying the noun that follows. We would expect the third part to follow such an example. The current underlined portion does not, introducing a clause instead. More on this in a moment.
bschool83 wrote:
A. where the cast and crew stayed on location
The parallelism is completely shot here. The nouns of the list, stripped of the adjectives, are
travel,
expenses, and...
where the cast and crew stayed. There should be a better option somewhere.
bschool83 wrote:
B. the places where the cast and crew stayed on location
Now our list of nouns is complete:
travel,
expenses, and, essentially,
places. Yes, I would expect an adjectival modifier ahead of
the places, rather than this
where (or
in which) clause that follows. The answer is also long-winded. But
stayed on location is correct in describing where the cast and crew had stayed, on the model of the more frequently encountered
filmed on location. I will confess to keeping this answer on hold while I scoured the other choices for more obvious errors. For now, though, I see nothing out-and-out wrong here.
bschool83 wrote:
C. location accommodations for the cast and crew
This is a tempting choice. The third part of the list would now be
accommodations, with
location being used as an adjective ahead of it. Seems perfect, right? The problem I have with
location accommodations is the missing preposition,
on. The sentence no longer conveys that the cast and crew had stayed
on location, i.e. where the movie was filmed, but just that they had stayed someplace, at a location that had provided accommodations for them. Since the sentence focuses on
the movie's "carbon footprint," I would expect the cast and crew to have stayed as close to where they had filmed as possible, and the missing
on muddles the picture. I mulled this one over, but I ultimately passed.
bschool83 wrote:
D. the cast and crew’s location accommodations
Perhaps this answer choice helped me get rid of (C), in retrospect. I know, the adjective-noun-prepositional phrase of the previous answer might have a leg up on the possessive-adjective-noun construct here, but they
convey pretty much the same meaning, and I had held on to (B) earlier with its unwieldy construct. The bottom line is that the cast and crew could still be staying anywhere, irrespective of the premise of the sentence, the
carbon-neutral quality of the film project.
bschool83 wrote:
E. accommodating the cast and crew on location
Phew! Finally, an easier option to pick off. The list
travel,
expenses, and
accommodating does not fit together at all. For the nominative use of the -ing phrase, I would expect the earlier examples to have established a precedent. (As a concession, at least this option preserves the
on location.)
There you have it. I know it might not be mind-blowing, but
clarity of meaning is always the primary concern in SC. I like a terse answer choice just as much as the next person, and the GMAT™ often prefers such conciseness, but
never at the expense of a clearcut meaning. In keeping with this overarching aim, the best option above is (B). If I were writing such a sentence on my own, I would probably come up with a different iteration, but you can only work with what is on the screen.
I would be happy to discuss any lingering questions or concerns anyone has on this one. As always, best of luck with your studies.
- Andrew
close
30 Aug 2011, 23:54
72%
(01:38)
wrong 
